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If there is a choice - it is better to place your bet with the company whose main business line depends on the service you are using. Google has a long history

by SeanDav 13y ago

If there is a choice - it is better to place your bet with the company whose main business line depends on the service you are using. Google has a long history of dropping services, because it can. It does not matter to Google that 10k people or 100k people find that particular service useful. Google is not about to drop search and search related ads any time soon - storage services it could drop tomorrow and not care less.

untog 13y ago
If there is a choice - it is better to place your bet with the company whose main business line depends on the service you are using. I don't see how that's a hard and fast rule. File storage is Dropbox's only business line - if it fails, they're gone. If it helps their other concerns (Gmail, Google Apps) Google can prop up Drive even if its unprofitable.
- brudgers 13y ago
  Gmail and Apps are at best minor contributors to Google's bottom line. If faith in Drive is based on its contribution to them, that Is little reason for that faith to be strong.
  - kissickas 13y ago
    It's true that they're not major contributors to Google's bottom line. Do you think Gmail will be cut soon as well?
watty 13y ago
I'm not a betting man but if I had to put $1 on which service (Dropbox or Google Drive) would disappear first I'd bet Dropbox.
- barrkel 13y ago
  I'd probably bet on Google putting Dropbox out of business with competition, then getting rid of Drive because it's no longer a growth area.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > I'd probably bet on Google putting Dropbox out of business with competition, then getting rid of Drive because it's no longer a growth area. That's not too unlikely, if by "Drive" you mean the desktop sync application, which pretty clearly has always been pretty tangential to the strategic purpose of Drive, which is first and foremost a cloud storage platform for web apps (Google first-party apps, institutional customer second-party apps, and ISV third-party apps).
    - barrkel 13y ago
      That's exactly what I think - I even said so earlier - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7394140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7394140
      - shaneofalltrad 13y ago
        Either way, it would be a shame if Google sank Dropbox and I would resent it. Dropbox is a GREAT service for free, then charges if you like more space. They offer the best use cases around for developers who do a lot of cross device work. You can keep all your information on all testing environments, and even share folders with others (or other accounts) and not really face limitations (i.e. no linux support). And with Google already getting strict about storage on Android, you can only suspect a Chess move to gain control with a dollar 99 on the hook.
  - bsgreenb 13y ago
    oof, worst of both worlds
  - brianmcdonough 13y ago
    How very Kafka.
    - Ygg2 13y ago
      If it was Kafka, at some point Google would transform into a giant locust, be accused of unknown crime, and sentenced to a prison colony in America.
laureny 13y ago
> If there is a choice - it is better to place your bet with the company whose main business line depends on the service you are using. Google has a long history of dropping services, because it can. Depends. Google might decide to stop supporting it because they want to focus on something else and DropBox might decide to pivot because they can no longer make enough money compared to the costs they incur (especially as Google is slowly squeezing them out of the market with the kind of price slashing we are currently discussing). Nobody can claim with certainty which of Google or DropBox is more likely to support their product the longest.
thefreeman 13y ago
It's not like Google is just going to cancel Drive and delete all of your files. If Drive goes away all you need to do is signup for Drop Box...
- Chronic26 13y ago
  And what happens when they will remove your files, say after 1 year of shutting down the service? Where will the users with TB of data flock to?
foxylad 13y ago
Actually the best choice is to store your data with both. This announcement just made that significantly cheaper, and there's opportunity here for a "cloud RAID" offering to take the hassle out of mirroring one's data. Dropbox already has the API, so they could turn this to their advantage.
- shaneofalltrad 13y ago
  I say we support Dropbox for secure storage and dump our images and videos on Google Drive and see how long they store that cheap. Don't just buy a g and throw a few things in there, make them earn this low-balling war.
shaneofalltrad 13y ago
I would like to add, the service provider that has built software for MAC, IOS, Windows, Linux and Android might be a better choice as well. I do like both Google Drive and Dropbox, but Google can't even make the time to support Linux and obviously can, so would you trust them when they have motives other than a universal storage device. Heck, even Ubuntu One does this well.

by SeanDav 13y ago

untog 13y ago

If there is a choice - it is better to place your bet with the company whose main business line depends on the service you are using. I don't see how that's a hard and fast rule. File storage is Dropbox's only business line - if it fails, they're gone. If it helps their other concerns (Gmail, Google Apps) Google can prop up Drive even if its unprofitable.

brudgers 13y ago
Gmail and Apps are at best minor contributors to Google's bottom line. If faith in Drive is based on its contribution to them, that Is little reason for that faith to be strong.
- kissickas 13y ago
  It's true that they're not major contributors to Google's bottom line. Do you think Gmail will be cut soon as well?

watty 13y ago

I'm not a betting man but if I had to put $1 on which service (Dropbox or Google Drive) would disappear first I'd bet Dropbox.

barrkel 13y ago
I'd probably bet on Google putting Dropbox out of business with competition, then getting rid of Drive because it's no longer a growth area.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > I'd probably bet on Google putting Dropbox out of business with competition, then getting rid of Drive because it's no longer a growth area. That's not too unlikely, if by "Drive" you mean the desktop sync application, which pretty clearly has always been pretty tangential to the strategic purpose of Drive, which is first and foremost a cloud storage platform for web apps (Google first-party apps, institutional customer second-party apps, and ISV third-party apps).
  - barrkel 13y ago
    That's exactly what I think - I even said so earlier - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7394140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7394140
    - shaneofalltrad 13y ago
      Either way, it would be a shame if Google sank Dropbox and I would resent it. Dropbox is a GREAT service for free, then charges if you like more space. They offer the best use cases around for developers who do a lot of cross device work. You can keep all your information on all testing environments, and even share folders with others (or other accounts) and not really face limitations (i.e. no linux support). And with Google already getting strict about storage on Android, you can only suspect a Chess move to gain control with a dollar 99 on the hook.
- bsgreenb 13y ago
  oof, worst of both worlds
- brianmcdonough 13y ago
  How very Kafka.
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    If it was Kafka, at some point Google would transform into a giant locust, be accused of unknown crime, and sentenced to a prison colony in America.

laureny 13y ago

> If there is a choice - it is better to place your bet with the company whose main business line depends on the service you are using. Google has a long history of dropping services, because it can. Depends. Google might decide to stop supporting it because they want to focus on something else and DropBox might decide to pivot because they can no longer make enough money compared to the costs they incur (especially as Google is slowly squeezing them out of the market with the kind of price slashing we are currently discussing). Nobody can claim with certainty which of Google or DropBox is more likely to support their product the longest.

thefreeman 13y ago

It's not like Google is just going to cancel Drive and delete all of your files. If Drive goes away all you need to do is signup for Drop Box...

Chronic26 13y ago
And what happens when they will remove your files, say after 1 year of shutting down the service? Where will the users with TB of data flock to?

foxylad 13y ago

Actually the best choice is to store your data with both. This announcement just made that significantly cheaper, and there's opportunity here for a "cloud RAID" offering to take the hassle out of mirroring one's data. Dropbox already has the API, so they could turn this to their advantage.

shaneofalltrad 13y ago
I say we support Dropbox for secure storage and dump our images and videos on Google Drive and see how long they store that cheap. Don't just buy a g and throw a few things in there, make them earn this low-balling war.

shaneofalltrad 13y ago

I would like to add, the service provider that has built software for MAC, IOS, Windows, Linux and Android might be a better choice as well. I do like both Google Drive and Dropbox, but Google can't even make the time to support Linux and obviously can, so would you trust them when they have motives other than a universal storage device. Heck, even Ubuntu One does this well.